Where will the 2024 Tour de France end?

Fans cheering the riders of the 2020 Tour de France on the Plateau des Glieres in Petit-Bornand-les-Glieres, France (by Julien Goldstein/Getty Images)

Italy will host the ‘Grand Départ’ of the Tour de France for the first time in 2024, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, with Nice set to act as the finale for the cycling ‘Grand Tour’ due to the staging of the summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The Italian newspaper said the Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont regions have brokered a deal worth €10m ($10.7m) to bring the first four stages of the 2024 Tour to the country, with Florence to act as its starting point.

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In 2024, the Tour de France will likely not finish on Paris’ Champs-Élysées for the first time in half a century, the finale of the race set to be completed outside of the French capital city for the first time in history.

Since 1975, the sight of the Arc de Triomphe to end the French Grand Tour has become tradition, and even before that Paris has always featured as the final finish line of the three-week race.

But in two years’ time there will be a calendar clash. The arrival of the Olympic Games in Paris necessitates a change to the normal running of things, reports La Gazzetta dello Sport. The Paris Games will start on July 26, which will shift the Tour back to a Saturday June 29 – Sunday July 21 slot.

Despite that five-day intervening period, the logistical and safety headache means these two huge sporting events will be kept geographically apart, with the Tour’s final stage set to relocate to Nice, according to the Italian newspaper.

This won’t be the biggest break in tradition at the Tour in 2024, however, as the race is also set to start from Italy for the first time in history.

€10 million of public and private money has been raised between the regions of Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont to bring the French Grand Tour across the border. From the day the proposition was first brought to race organisers ASO, it has asked for the race start in the picturesque city of Florence.

Stage 1 will supposedly set off from the capital of Tuscany, passing through the Piazza del Comune in Faenza before arriving along the Romagna Riviera. Stage 2 begins from Marco Pantani country in Cesenatico and finishes in Bologna before a third day from Modena to Piacenza through the Apennines.

There will be no rest day following three days of racing abroad, as often follows for foreign Grand Départs, as the peloton sets off from Pinerolo and crosses into French territory in time for the finish line.

An Italian Grand Départ would be the third consecutive non-French start to the Tour, following on from Copenhagen in 2022 and the Basque Country in 2023. This has never happened before in the history of the race and is partly due to the delayed Copenhagen Grand Départ, which was moved back a year from 2021 after football took precedence when the pandemic-disrupted 2020 European Championships was also moved to the summer of 2021.

When the Tour returns to Paris in 2025, which it likely will, it will be a brand new Champs-Élysées that greets the peloton with France’s capital city set to revamp the famed avenue for the Olympic Games with a tree-planting project and an increase in pedestrian areas.

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The Tour de France looks like it will be heading for Italy for its Grand Départ in 2024, with the governor of the Piedmont region in Northern Italy has all but confirmed.

At the beginning of June, La Gazzetta dello Sport (opens in new tab) reported that the Tour will begin in Florence, Italy in 2024, and this has been reiterated by comments from Alberto Cirio, governor of Piedmont in a report from Tutto Bici (opens in new tab). 

“Piedmont will continue to host major events,” Cirio said. “After all I can tell you that the Tour de France will come over our roads.”

“In terms of visibility, the Tour de France is the biggest sporting event in the world. The 2024 edition will pass through Piemonte, with Turin and Pinerolo as important stage cities. I can’t say more at the moment,” he added. 

According to La Gazzetta in June, the Tour will start on June 29 in 2024 in Piazzale Michelangelo in the historic centre of Florence, and Cirio’s comments reconfirm the news. 

From there the race is expected to traverse the regions of Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont. 

When the Italian Grand Départ is confirmed, it will make for a strange year for the French Grand Tour, with it being the first time in its history that the race has finished outside of Paris and away from the Champs-Elysées. It has also never started in Italy, although that’s all set to change.

The 2024 edition is due to finish in Nice, due to the race’s organisers, ASO, believing it is impossible to have the finish in Paris, days before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, hence the move to Nice instead. 

After the race has got underway in Florence, it’s expected that stage two will start in Cesenatico, where Marco Pantani comes from, before finishing in Bologna. 

Stage three will then head from Modene through to Piacenza across the Apennines, making for a tough day in the hills. 

Stage four will see the race set off from Pinerolo before crossing the border into French territory. Pinerolo is significant in the races’ history due to it being the site of a legendary breakaway involving Fausto Coppi in the 1949 edition. 

With an interesting start and ending in prospect at the 2024 edition, it could make how the race pans out very different. 

Tradition has it that the final stage is more of a victory procession for the winner, with the yellow jersey safe on the shoulders of whoever is leading the general classification. 

However, with a finale away from Paris, it will remain to be seen whether the rule book will be well and truly be ripped up for the first time in history.

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